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Jackson Pollock cigarette retouch

example · Christopher Hitchens · retold in 3 talks

The US Post Office removed a cigarette from a photo of Jackson Pollock, illustrating a Stalinist-style fear of 'excessive enjoyment' or intensity.

As told 2

“years later, retouch, the cigarette disappeared. It's as if it's too much. It's too much this intensity of enjoyment.”
“The cigarette was like in Stalinist retouching, the cigarette disappeared.”
1:22:05 Less Than Nothing2012 · 1:23:18

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

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Every retelling 2

The US Post Office removed a cigarette from a photo of Jackson Pollock, illustrating a Stalinist-style fear of 'excessive enjoyment' or intensity., illustrating repulsion as defense against excessive enjoyment
1:22:05 Less Than Nothing2012 · 1:23:18
A postage stamp bearing Pollock's portrait with a cigarette later had the cigarette digitally removed, a practice Žižek compares to Stalinist photo-retouching. Used to illustrate the ideological obsession with anti-smoking that goes beyond public health into a new moralism., illustrating ideology in everyday life,controlled enjoyment